[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 42 (Monday, October 19, 1998)]
[Pages 2045-2046]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Departure for Silver Spring, Maryland, and an Exchange With 
Reporters

October 13, 1998

Kosovo

    The President. Before I leave to visit a school in Maryland and talk 
more about our ongoing budget struggle to secure funding for education, 
I would like to say a few words about Kosovo.
    Over the past few days, NATO has resolved to move President 
Milosevic from the battlefield to the bargaining table. The commitments 
he has made could lead--and I emphasize the word ``could''--to the 
peaceful resolution of a crisis that threatens stability in the Balkans 
and the lives of tens of thousands of refugees, many of them homeless. 
But for that to happen, we must now see progress as President Milosevic 
turns his commitments into concrete realities.
    First, the cessation of hostilities must continue. Second, the 
troops President Milosevic recently sent to Kosovo must begin to move 
out, and those already there must begin to come to garrison. Third, the 
international monitors must be allowed to enter and be given full 
freedom of movement. Fourth, humanitarian relief agencies must be able 
to bring help to the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. And 
fifth, serious autonomy negotiations with the Kosovars must begin to go 
forward.
    As I said last night, we will not rely on what President Milosevic 
says, but on what he does for the whole world to see. To that end, a key 
component of the commitments he has made is an intrusive, on-the-ground 
and in-the-air verification system. It will include about 2,000 
international inspectors in Kosovo who will serve as watchdog to ensure 
that the cease-fire holds and the Serb forces withdraw, while building 
confidence among Kosovars to return to their homes. And it will involve 
unrestricted NATO aerial surveillance to monitor compliance and quickly 
detect violations.
    The international community prefers compliance to conflict. But in 
voting to give our military commanders the authority to carry out 
airstrikes against Serbia, NATO sent a clear message to President 
Milosevic: NATO is ready to act. It is up now to the President of Serbia 
to follow through on his commitments.
    Thank you.
    Q. Mr. President, given your expressed distrust of Milosevic, how 
optimistic are you that he's going to be able to fulfill this long list 
of conditions by the deadline?
    The President. Well, I'm neither optimistic, nor pessimistic because 
I have something better now. We have now a verification system, so we're 
not dependent upon our hopes. We have a verification system. There will 
be facts--facts on the ground which will tell us whether or not the 
compliance is there. And I certainly would hope that this NATO position 
will, in effect, be maintained until all the conditions are fully met. 
And I expect that it will be.
    So I cannot--I would like to say again what I said last night--I'm 
very appreciative to Mr. Holbrooke, but also to Secretary General Solana 
and General Clark and all of our NATO allies, as well as to the 
Secretary of State and Mr. Berger and our people who have worked for the 
better part of 3 months to try to bring about these developments. So I'm 
very pleased about where we are today, because we're not dependent on 
hope. We can just look at the facts and see what he

[[Page 2046]]

does. It is a very good agreement. It is completely in accord with the 
United Nations resolution, and it gives us the chance to save an awful 
lot of innocent people from starvation or freezing this winter and to 
remove yet another very dangerous source of instability in Europe.
    Q. Sir, if he doesn't comply, will he escape paying any price for 
what has happened so far?
    The President. Well, I think he is going to pay the price of a 
defeat here for continued aggression by his government and he's not 
going to succeed in his designs. I think the most important thing now is 
for us to save lives, return people to their homes, get them the 
humanitarian aid they need, and to remove completely and irrevocably the 
threat of aggression by the Serb military and other forces in Kosovo.
    We've got to put first things first here. The most important thing 
is to right this situation, as we were able to do in Bosnia. And I think 
that today I'd say we have a pretty good chance of doing that. Again, we 
prefer compliance over conflict, and we hope that will be the case. But 
whether it is or not is entirely up to him now, and we have the 
verification system in place and so we'll know. And I'm very, very 
pleased with the work that all the people involved have done in these 
last several days. This is where the international community ought to 
be, what we ought to be doing, the position we ought to be taking. And 
I'm looking forward to events as they unfold.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 11:22 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to President Slobodan Milosevic of 
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro); Special 
Envoy Richard Holbrooke, the President's nominee to be Ambassador to the 
U.N.; NATO Secretary General Javier Solana; and Gen. Wesley K. Clark, 
Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.